


Anemones

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Psychodrama and anal sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 16:29:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13298763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: Drops of blood.





	Anemones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MillicentCordelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MillicentCordelia/gifts).



> This story takes place some time in the not-too-distant future, later in season four.  
> I am not involved in the production of Gotham, and this school is not involved in the production of Gotham. No one pays me to do this. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

It’s a party.  
That’s what Jim thinks, startled by the thought but willing himself to sneer, as he’s dragged in by Zsasz, and finds himself looking at not just Oswald, but Jerome, and Butch Gilzean.  
“The gang’s all here,” Jim mutters, and as Victor pulls him up, Victor answers him with a ghoulish smile. “So, Victor, you’re back working for the old boss. Sofia wasn’t all you thought she’d be?”  
“Something like that,” Victor says, impassive, inscrutable.  
“What happened to not working for a child murderer?”  
The surface of Victor’s face doesn’t ripple; he could be made of marble. The marble of the tomb. A reply as cool as the sepulchre: “All’s well that ends well.”  
“And you-” Jim says, regarding Oswald, “Why are you working with these idiots?”  
“Now, now,” Oswald says, “None of that.” He punches Jim in the stomach. The blow isn’t very hard, but it’s perfectly placed to make Jim’s bowels contract like a wounded eye clenching shut. As Jim’s doubled over, the air knocked out of him, struggling not to vomit or worse, Oswald lifts his face back up. “I realized something, Jim,” Oswald says, so close that Jim can feel the heat of his breath, “when I was in Arkham. Because of you. Again. I realized that I don’t belong to your world. I’m not like you. I wasn’t born to bring order to Gotham. I was born to rip it to shreds.”  
“Amen to that,” Jerome says, sounding a little bit drunk.  
“A wise woman once told me,” Oswald continues, “that I should make the city mine, or burn it to the ground. Now that you and your girlfriend have made the former so unattractive, I think that I’ll try the latter.”  
“You won’t,” Jim grits around the ache in his guts, “You’d rather die than destroy this place. I know you, Oswald.”  
Now, Oswald punches Jim in the mouth. Again, it’s not that hard, but it makes Oswald’s point. Jim tastes blood. He’s disgusted at his own surprise. “Please. Call me Penguin. The rest of you can leave. Jim and I have some things to discuss privately.”  
Victor lets go of him, and Jim sort of stumbles, before catching himself.  
When they’re alone: “Now, what I really want to know,” Oswald says, “is what did you do for her?”  
Jim spits. The bloody saliva shines up at him like a creature in a tide pool. “What do you think?”  
“No,” Oswald snaps, “I want you to say it.” He smiles. “If you could live with having done it, surely you could live with saying it.”  
“No,” Jim rasps. It’s not that he’s ashamed. He’s been through that, come out the other end. Shame is pointless. It doesn’t solve your problems. It makes them harder to solve. Feeling shame around Oswald is a laugh, anyway. The man’s a murderer. Jim won’t give him even a trickle of shame. Yet-  
He resolutely doesn’t want to tell Oswald what Oswald already knows. It would be like giving in. Jim isn’t ready to admit defeat. He may never be, he suddenly realizes. That thought should cheer him, should make him feel stronger in his convictions, but it only fills him with such fatigue. It’s the feeling of having believed yourself to be finished with a task, only to learn that there’s still more to do, and no measure of that still left undone. If only you knew when you’d be finished, it might be bearable. It’s the not-knowing that makes you tired.  
“Feeling ashamed of ourselves, are we?” Oswald says with mock sympathy. He comes in close, peers quizzically into Jim’s face. “Did she make you feel used? Make you feel cheap?”  
“What about you? Rumor has it that she played you for a fool.”  
“Lonely people are easy to take in,” Oswald says with a calmness that’s somehow more chilling than his rages or violence. “What’s your excuse?”  
“Oswald, stop this. It isn’t you.”  
“What isn’t me? Torturing you? Killing you? That’s me, all over.”  
“Destroying Gotham.”  
“Gotham destroyed itself, a long time ago,” Oswald spits.  
“You don’t believe that.”  
“Stop pretending to care. It’s insulting to us both. You’ve been depending for too long on my kindness.”  
Jim closes his eyes. “Yes.”  
Oswald laughs, an actual ‘Ha’. “Honesty. You didn’t learn that from her. Nor she from you, for that matter.”  
“No.”  
“Twice in a row. Once more, and I might go out and buy a lottery ticket, because it’s my lucky day.”  
“Kill me, if you’re going to.”  
“No,” Oswald says, hard, bitter, “I asked you a question, and you haven’t answered it. What did you do for her?”  
“You already know.”  
“I want to hear you say it. Why can’t you say it, Jim?” Oswald laughs, that laugh you’d mistake for unhinged if you didn’t know him, “Anyone would think that you really were ashamed of yourself.”  
“Why do you need me to say it? Are you jealous?”  
Oswald’s features screw up, his face pinches shut in the way that Jim remembers, when Oswald had to stop himself from reacting, when Oswald used to have to watch his temper. He doesn’t say anything, but he does strike Jim. This time, it’s real. It’s shocking. It whips Jim’s head to the side. In his mouth, the blood again wells and flows.  
He kisses Oswald.  
Oswald wrenches away from him, hits Jim again.  
Jim kisses Oswald again.  
Tart, sardonic, Oswald makes a sound that’s sort of like a laugh, and grips Jim’s arms. He holds Jim tightly, far more tightly than he should be able to.  
Oswald hits him.  
Jim lets himself fall.  
“Maybe that’s the way it is with you,” Oswald says conversationally, “Maybe that was what it was all about. You liked it that she made you feel dirty. Is that it?”  
Picking himself up, Jim says, “No.”  
“No, she didn’t make you feel dirty, or no, you didn’t like it?”  
“Both. You’re the only one who makes me feel that way.” In saying it, he’s made it true. Or it was always true, and saying it just forces him to believe it. “Just you,” Jim says softly, making himself look into Oswald’s eyes. He feels it. Yes, it was always true. Whatever comes next, it doesn’t matter. Jim is so tired.  
Now, Oswald is perversely gentle, his mouth soft against Jim’s. “Oh, Jim,” he says, his eyebrows raised in amusement, “you should have just told me.”  
But it goes both ways.  
He pulls Oswald close him, wraps his arms around Oswald, holds him as he kisses him, softer still. Then, he just holds Oswald, kisses the corner of his mouth, his cheek, his neck above his collar.  
“What the fuck are you doing?” Oswald asks, sounding- agitated. Concerned.  
“This is what I like,” Jim says, and kisses Oswald’s mouth again.  
Oswald tries to pull away, but Jim doesn’t let him. He has to wait. They both do. They have to… endure this.  
Now.  
Oswald hits him, and Jim sees it coming, but doesn’t flinch.  
“Well, whatever you did for her,” Oswald says, “I’ll bet it wasn’t this.”  
It’s wrong. It’s all wrong. Oswald is still-- He has to be where Jim is. Jim has to pull him down. “Let me...” Jim says softly, and he’s not even sure what he’s asking for, but he has to ask. Oswald has to know that he wants this. Whatever it is.  
Oswald allows himself to be kissed. Then, Jim allows Oswald to hit him. The bones in Jim’s face ache. His skin could split, on its own, as though battering itself from the inside, out. He doesn’t want it to stop.  
But only if he can have the other half.  
He pushes aside Oswald’s collar, kisses his throat. Oswald’s hands wind in his sleeves, fingers clenching dangerously, rubbing the material against Jim’s skin.  
Belatedly, Oswald asks again, in a scouring whisper: “What are you doing?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“Well, figure it out,” Oswald says, speaking normally, and pulls away. “Tell me,” he demands, lifting up his chin, imperious and cruel.  
“Why do you care?” Jim asks weakly.  
“Why do you?” Does Oswald sound panicked? “If you’re dead set on not answering, it must be because you have something to hide.”  
But Jim doesn’t. Jim has nothing to hide. Which is what makes it so horrible. Oswald has already seen through him. All the way through Jim. To nothing. Jim has nothing to hide, because he is nothing.  
“Fuck me.”  
Throwing his head back, Oswald laughs. “You’ll do anything to get out of answering a simple question, won’t you?”  
Stepping closer, Jim looks into Oswald’s eyes, holds his gaze as he says, “It’s what I want.”  
“No,” Oswald answers with a sneer.  
“Hit me.”  
“No.”  
“Kiss me.”  
“No,” now, Oswald smiles, “I’m not giving you anything until you give me what I want.”  
“I could just lie,” Jim says, feeling desperate.  
“I would know.”  
Jim looks toward the door. In response, Oswald slaps him halfheartedly. He kisses Oswald. He lets Oswald direct him. He lets Oswald kiss him roughly, kiss him deep. He lets Oswald pull off his tie and yank open his collar, and kiss his neck. He lets Oswald bite him. First, soft and ticklish. Then, hard. Electric. His head falls back. He hears himself moan.  
“Tell me,” Oswald whispers.  
Jim can only breathe. He feels… stupid. He’s no longer sure what Oswald’s actually referring to; if Oswald still even cares about Sofia, or anything else. He takes Oswald’s hands in his, moves them up under his jacket, over his body. The sound Oswald makes is gratifyingly surprised, disarmed. He moves one of Oswald’s hands down, between his legs. Oswald grips him. First, bruisingly hard. Then, gently, curiously.  
He looks at Jim.  
He unbuttons Jim’s pants. Unzips Jim. Slips his hand inside. It’s like new parts of Jim are being created in the moment. Before this, he didn’t feel anything. Now, he feels everything. He rubs himself against Oswald’s hand, moves in to kiss Oswald’s mouth.  
“Against the wall,” Oswald says breathlessly. It’s a question. Not a command.  
Jim turns around, holds himself against the wall. Behind him, Oswald is a pulsing stain of warmth. Palpitating, radiating. Like a disembodied heart. Oswald’s hands are on him again.  
“What do you want?” Oswald asks.  
“Fuck me.”  
Oswald says nothing. Jim closes his eyes. He hears Oswald arrange himself. He hears the wet click of Oswald spitting. Then, he only feels. The pain is exquisite, like something unnecessary is being cut out of him. Oswald huffs with the effort, moving slowly, clumsily, blunt and blocky.  
“Tell me if you think it’s too much,” Oswald says, in a tone that suggests that that, and a dollar will get Jim a cup of coffee.  
“It’s not too much,” Jim says quietly, for the thrill of feeling Oswald continue more gently, now. For the thrill of Oswald’s sigh, the peaked exhalation of a trapped breath. Oswald’s hands on him. Oswald takes a deep breath, then pushes in further. Swears elaborately. Jim’s all alone in his body. More alone than ever, for having someone else inside of it. Carefully, he pushes back against Oswald.  
Now, this is what they’re doing: moving with each other, sometimes so slowly that they aren’t really moving at all. If you do too much at once, it’ll be over, and no matter what Jim might have thought, he doesn’t want this to be over.  
He’ll let Oswald decide. Then, he doesn’t even have to think. He’s just a body- a newly-formed lump of flesh and nerve. Oswald falls against him. There’s something very intimate about the motion. It’s like Oswald is admitting defeat. Like what he feels about Jim allows him to admit it to Jim. So, Jim holds him up. In a way, they’re taking care of each other, now. Jim’s body was made by Oswald. With this admission, does Oswald now belong to Jim?  
With a drunken, mumbled motion and a strangled sound, Oswald pulls out, comes on the back of Jim’s thigh.  
“Turn around,” Oswald whispers.  
Jim turns, and Oswald kisses his mouth, his neck, presses his hand into Jim’s crotch. Pulls down his underwear, still up in front, and holds Jim’s cock in his hand. At first he’s still, Oswald’s pulse beating against Jim’s, then Oswald moves his hand in a slow regular motion, his eyes on Jim’s. Slowly, Oswald kneels. He kisses more than he sucks. The soft, melting feeling of his wet mouth. The rest of Jim is in agony. The crush of the bones in his face. The hollow bloom in his belly. That needling, ardent emptiness so close to his cock. It’s perfect. He comes. Like everything else, it hurts. It’s like being rubbed raw from the inside out.  
When Oswald stands, he looks at Jim with- Jim isn’t sure what Oswald looks like or feels like. Jim doesn’t even know what he feels like. Oswald opens his mouth to speak, but then closes it. Finally, he does say something, but the words are remote, incomprehensible. It can’t still be the same question, but Jim somehow knows that it is. Now, Jim knows the answer that Oswald was looking for. Not Jim’s answer, but Oswald’s. Suddenly, he knows everything about Oswald. He wraps his arms around Oswald, pulls him in close. He kisses Oswald. He tastes his own blood, his come. With little conviction, Oswald tries to push him away, but Jim holds on.   
He kisses Oswald.


End file.
